Ann Ratner

Ann Ratner, Co-Founder, Hair Cuttery and Bubbles; excerpted from an interview with the National Museum of American History, November 10, 2014.

I was an only child with hardworking parents. My father was an engineer; my mother worked in a factory and made clothes. I grew up in Manchester, England, and my grandmother was very supportive of the royals in England. We spent Christmas Day with my grandmother, and she would listen to the queen. We couldn’t eat until after the queen’s speech. So we would wait, and they’d play the national anthem before the speech, and we’d all have to stand up. Then we’d sit down and listen to the queen, and then we were allowed to eat. My father was born in Coventry when my grandfather played soccer for Coventry City. But my grandmother had photographs, amazing photographs. As a child she’d let me go through certain drawers and cupboards, and see all these fabulous pictures of my grandfather, of the royals.

I left school when I was 16. I did not go on. [With] education—if you weren’t pushed to go to the next level—it was either a nurse, secretary or you took shorthand typing. I could not be a nurse. I could not stand to work in an office. My mother used to get her hair done, and I used to go with her all the time. And I thought, “Well, you know, maybe this is something I could do.” And so I would go with her and hang out, and got to know the lady that ran the salon very well. They used to have all these clamps and sizzles, and it smelled terrible. And I used to think, “Well, I’m not sure this is really for me.” But I felt like I had no choices.

My first job as an apprentice was a long way away from where I lived. It was very difficult to get a job at that time, and I had to take two buses to get there. I would get home at 9:00 at night. I did this for about three months, and my mother said, “This is ridiculous. This is not a life for a young girl.” And she had found an ad in a newspaper for the first ever beauty school in Manchester. It was called the Ken Pearson Academy. I can’t remember how much it was, but in those days, it was expensive to go to this school. And my mother says, “I don’t care what it costs. We’re going to go for an interview, and if they want you, I’m going to make sure somehow you are going to this school.” I went to the school, and it was this amazing place.

I got a job in a very high-end salon, which I absolutely loved. It was nothing like that salon my mother used to go to. As I got older, the industry definitely changed. And I ended up working in a very, very nice store that was very high end. I started as an assistant because it was so high end. You didn’t start as a stylist. You started as an assistant, even though you’d gone to school. And that was the beginning of everything that changed for me. I think that’s what gave me the incentive to want to see the world, to look for a better life, and I credit my mother with that.

When I left, my mother was so brave. I know she was heartbroken when I left. But she said, “I just want you to love life, and I know there’s a great world out there.” She was very upset that I was going to America, “because I don’t think you’ll come back from America.” [But] I was bored. I was always going to the next step, the next level, always wondering, and then the salon I worked in, I ended up being the salon manager. And then it was like, there’s got to be something other than this. This is okay. This is good, but I would like more. I was 19. I was always traveling with friends. So this was the first venture into doing something totally by myself. And so here I am.

When I got to America, I could not believe [Americans] were still setting hair. I hadn’t set hair in a long time. So I knew that there was opportunity in America. All I wanted to do was really open a salon, because it was such a beautiful part of the business. Vidal Sassoon, with the geometric haircuts—it was just a whole different industry. You had Twiggy, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones. I mean London, Carnegie Street, people dressed crazy. When I first came to Washington, I was so—it seemed so dull in comparison. But I ended up meeting Dennis, and getting married, and having two daughters, and staying in Washington.